Wednesday, December 22, 2010

All I want for Christmas ...

is a few more thinkers and doers like this.

It's worth sitting through about a minute of Kiefer Sutherland's introduction to get to the meat. And it is not just for Canadians, though Canadians are justly proud of this man.

Tommy Douglas is credited with doing what it took to win single payer health care for Canada in the 1960s despite, among other obstacles, a doctors' strike; Canadians call their system "Medicare." It's useful for people in the United States to know that Canadians won this sensible, cost effective system in one province first, then carried it to the rest of the country. I wonder which state is going to go first here? Maybe Vermont? Or even California?

Tommy Douglas was voted "the greatest Canadian of all time" in a Canadian Broadcasting poll in 2004.

In 20 years, will we think any of our current leaders are "the greatest"?

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